


Chiaroscuro

by ChocoChipBiscuit



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Bondage, F/M, Femdom, Ghouls, Masturbation, Safe Sane and Consensual, Safeword Use, Safewords, Sex Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 13:50:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2695343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChocoChipBiscuit/pseuds/ChocoChipBiscuit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beatrix Russell is all boots and spurs; her client is all soft curls and inexperience.</p><p>They have a good time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chiaroscuro

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bullwhipsandnecrosis](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=bullwhipsandnecrosis).



“So you’re the ghoul cowboy?”

The client’s flushed and excited, eyes twinkling like Vegas lights even in the darkness of the saloon. None of the twitchiness or slurring that Bea’s learned to recognize in addicts or chem users though. Good. Not that the Followers’ mealy-mouthed sanctity rubbed off on her, but playing with someone off their rocker is a recipe for disaster.

It’s only fun to hurt someone if they can feel it.

She gives him a lingering once-over. Good teeth. Smooth skin—not just the usual pleasantries of a non-ghoul, but youthful and unlined, glowing with cleanliness. Did he actually scrub himself up before visiting the whorehouse? Nice change at least. Delicate hands, though with the ragged-edged nails of a habitual biter. Dark skin, darker eyes, jet-black hair in springy curls—

Damn if he’s not tasty.

But one correction first.

“Cowgirl. Rougher and rowdier.”

Her current ensemble’s got as much resemblance to a real cowboy’s outfit as FISTO does to a Securitron, but shiny black leather doesn’t make her any less tough. It’s hotter than the seventh circle of hell but at least it raises others’ temperatures as much as her own. She cocks what’s left of one eyebrow at the boy as he stammers himself into an awkward “I know, but can you—I mean, what do—can you take charge?”

“What do you want to do?”

His gaze drops as he shuffles his feet. “See, this is why I wanted a male ghoul. I just want someone who can get rough and rowdy with me. Not all this—all this _talking_.”

“Kid, you ever hired a pro?” It takes a supreme act of will-power to keep from slamming his face into the bar, it really does.

He blushes beet-red, color splotching across his chest and all the way to the tips of his ears. “No, but I tried light stuff with exes. I just want someone—you know. Tough. Experienced.”

“Kid, I’ve arm-wrestled a super mutant and made him my gimp. I’m tougher than old boots and got enough bite to chew you raw. But I don’t _have_ to prove anything to you.” A milky glare punctuates that as she crosses her arms. “You want to play rough and nasty, I can do that. When we are _playing_. Right now all we’re doing is talk. I haven’t said yes to you either, you know.”

He twists his hands all up in another like trying to wad up and fling away his embarrassment. “Yeah, makes sense. Look, I’m sorry. I just put my foot in my mouth—uh, can we start over?”

“Sure.” She sits back in the stool, straddling the seat with her boots resting on the lower rungs and an arm sprawling across the bar for balance. He clasps his hands tight behind him, shoulders high and exhaling loud and gusty through his nostrils. They blink at one another and she finally arches her brow and motions at him to get started.

Blushing like a virgin in a whorehouse—and she’d think it more literal if he hadn’t just admitted having had previous lovers—he shuffles his feet and retries that line.

“Hello. Um. Are you—are you the tough ghoul?”

“If you’re into bullwhips and necrosis, I’m your gal. I am a student of anguish both mental and physical. Looking for an education?”

“Uh—yeah.” And he bites his lip, chewing before he dares to ask “and what can I do with you? Or you—to me?”

“I might look like a corpse, but I don’t do any necrophilia shit,” she says flatly. “No scat either. And I don’t play without a safe word.” Sipping at her drink—and it’s only sarsaparilla because she’s working tonight and she won’t play drunk—she adds, “And I don’t play if you’re fucked up. No chems or booze.”

“Really? But you work in a—“ he begins before Beatrix overrides him with a creaking laugh like thunder from on high.

“Kid, I wasn’t kidding about the bullwhips. And if you’re too high or drunk to tell me you’re losing circulation or whatever, then it’s no good for either of us.” Wetting her lips with the soda, she remembers one more thing. “And I don’t have sex. Least not with any part of you entering any part of me.”

“Okay.” He squares his shoulders. “Um. I would—I would still really like to try this with you. If you’ll have me. Can we talk somewhere more private?” And those big eyes and trembling lashes might bring out someone else’s protective instincts but Beatrix wonders if he cries or prays when he breaks down. She likes the noisy ones better.

So she leads him upstairs, thumbs hooked in her pockets and walking with an easy saunter that she’s copied from old reels, with a touch of the trademark cocky King swagger tossed in. She can feel his gaze heavy on her, responding to the crackling energy she turns on and off like a switch while playing. It’s not just the chance to hog-tie strange and exciting people—who _pay_ her for the privilege, no less—but the chance to take on new roles, to step into (or out of) her skin and become bigger than life. And he gobbles it up like candy.

Hot _damn_ but this should be a live one.

The room is Spartan and to her tastes; a wooden straight-backed chair. A bed with a sturdy iron frame—and that had been an agony to carry upstairs but she likes the craftsmanship and the posts make perfect anchors for restraints—and a simple wooden dresser filled with the essentials. Rope. A couple floggers, running the gamut from soft little ticklers to ones that will sting or thud according to her or the client’s mood. Lube and a few more toys, pins and clips and all kinds of innocuous objects that may look like random bits from a junk shop but represent a cornucopia of delights to the devious mind.

Assuming his fantasies aren’t too much for his body.

“So what are you into, kid?”

“I’d like...” His voice trails and he licks his lips, hands wringing in front of him. “I’d like to be tied up. But forced into it, kind of tossed around and played with first.” Ruffling his hair with one hand, curls twisting around his little finger, he offers a lopsided grin. “If that’s okay?”

“Sounds fun. What kind of feel are you going for?”

“Being overpowered. I want to be scared a bit.”

“What kind of safe words do you use?”

“Um…” And he looks all helpless and puppy-eyed again so she bites her tongue and waits. There’s pleasure in training a neophyte, like spilling ink across fresh paper, but there’s patience too. And some types of patience don’t come any easier despite the years. “Don’t know what you mean. Like stop or enough?”

“Sure, if you want. I usually use colors—just because sometimes if I’m riding your ass or you’re screaming, ‘oh’ sounds a hell of a lot like ‘no.’”

“So what colors?”

And there’s memories there too, sweet and sour on the back of her tongue. Red for sunset and dying flames, crackling with years past. Yellow is slow and easy, butter melting across the tongue and one lazy afternoon spent with her boots resting on an old love’s shoulders as he knelt before her while she drank tea and flipped through _Cat’s Paw_. Green is vigor and vitality, sprawling with want and yearning, exultant in its own strength like leaves of grass.

She carries her years in her like rings in a redwood.

The kid’s too young to know all the lives coiled up inside her, but she can paint _this_ moment, _this_ feeling fresh on his skin, etch it into him so he’ll carry it in him too.

“Red is stop. Yellow is slow, take a break. Green is for me to keep going.” ‘Like a traffic light,’ she doesn’t add, since the kid wouldn’t get the reference; while they’ve got the juice in Freeside, streetlights for nonworking cars were never a priority.

“Okay.” His thumb edges to his mouth, one tooth already on the nail before he flushes and not-so-smoothly transitions to ruffling his own hair. “I’m ready then.” The skin around his eyes crinkles as he cheekily adds “all green.”

She growls, a feral sound made even more fierce with her ravaged vocal chords, and springs. His eyes widen, whites all visible as he yelps in surprise and she thinks he forgot the safe word already and eases back but he yelps “green, green, fucking green!” so she slams him into the wall. The breath knocks out of him in a loud whoosh as he keens, half-pain—big baby, she hasn’t even _begun_ to hurt him—and half-exultation, a delighted ‘ah!’ buried in the terrified ‘aah!’ There’s no fight in him; he’s weak as water and does not even bother with a token struggle as she uses one forearm to pin his wrists to the side, scraping the nails of her other hand up the back of his neck. Her fingers meet, twisting through those glorious curls and she _loves_ his hair, the springy mass and coarse texture giving just the right amount of grip as she tugs back to expose his throat.

She curls her lips back, pressing teeth over the delicate skin. He tastes soft and tender to the tongue, his pulse fluttering against her like butterfly wings and his breathing halts, too terrified to even exhale until she hisses “ _mine_ ” and she _prides_ herself on that hiss. It skitters up the spine and slithers into the dark animal hindbrain, evoking fear through sheer cussed determination and charisma. It lingers in nightmares, distilled antithesis to the plummy drawl of the King and his impersonators.

It works on the kid as he breathes out, a whimper breaking as he moans “yours.”

She can feel his erection pressed against her hip, firm but not insistent. Good.

Trailing her fingertips, the dry skin rasping over the line of his jaw, she touches her thumb and forefinger to the tender spots over his neck, the places where the blood hums close to the surface. She won’t choke him by pressing, but the tremor running through him tells him just how keenly aware he is of his life plucked between her fingers.

It’s like chiaroscuro, the beauty in the contrast. Bea knows she’s no oil painting, but looking like death incarnate has advantages too. She terrifies him with the reminder of his own mortality, her sharp-edged grin showing far too many teeth and her leather gleaming darker than shadow. He fascinates her with his fresh face and all the life still ahead of him, sunlight filtering through the window and painting golden strips across his flesh. Fear and pain and anguish all transmute to pleasure through the pleasant alchemy of control, blurring the boundaries so that he mind reels, senses euphoric with the feel of flesh on flesh, nails biting crescents in his skin and her teeth pressing over his Adam’s apple in dry mockery of a kiss, all hard edges unblunted by lips.

Pain—pulling his hair taut so that he shivers cold. Pleasure—her breath hot on his ear, a whispered caress over the lobe she murmurs slow and easy. “I will release your arms, so start stripping down for me. Pants on, shirt off—if you wag your cock at me I’m caging it. Understand?”

“Yes’m—yes Miz—mistress?” he flounders, snaring his thumb through a button-hole. Fingers writhing, he finally manages to extricate himself, but not before Bea chuckles like whiskey spilling over gravel.

“Yes’m works, kid. I hate ‘mistress’ and ‘Miz’ makes me think of my least favorite teacher.”

“Yes’m.” His pulse slows beneath her fingers, a steady rhythm against her tattered pads but still so rich and _vital_ , warm and heady and she wonders how he would look with a bloodied nose or split lip—not that she boxes her clients, but sex and violence are so inextricably linked she sees the crimson smears as garlands and bruises as roses. Thorns stand guard below every bright petal.

The kid’s too young and soft for those sorts of trophies, but give him time. Give him challenges to sink his teeth into, to sharpen his fangs and whet his appetites.

But there are glories in the young too. His unmarked flesh gleams walnut-dark, supple to the touch. His chest is smooth planes marked with more dark, curling hair, then gently swelling out past the ribs; no hollow concavity here, so well-fed by Freeside standards, covered in a generous wealth of curls nearly as glorious as those on top of his head. He flushes at her perusal so she takes even longer to inspect him, letting him feel the weight of her gaze heavy as nails on skin, harsh like rain rattling a tin roof. Some people have a natural presence, their body not just inhabiting but bending the space around them, their attention raising prickles on the back of the neck—but Beatrix’s honed it, and wields the force of her intent like a scalpel. He starts shaking, flesh pebbling and nipples puckering as he struggles with the last button.

“ _Off_.”

He rips that last button free, the disk spinning through the air and landing on its edge before rolling against the dresser. It lands half in light, half in shadow—not quite the yin-yang one of the prewar Chinese ghouls tried explaining to her. Not that she cares much for that philosophy; it’s not balance she seeks, but contrast. Like coffee and _pastillas de leche_ , the bitter heightens the sweet. But like coffee, some prefer the bitter on its own.

She notes the button’s fall; kid’s going to be too distracted to remember.

“Good boy.” He smiles like a sunbeam at that faint praise so she rewards him by rustling her thumb through his chest hair—too brisk to be sensual, more like ruffling a favorite dog—but he arches at the touch, gasping and his lips pink and shiny like a boiled sweet. She has half a mind to lean in and taste him, see if he melts sticky and lingering on the back of her tongue, but no. She doesn’t kiss clients.

As he tries to pull his shirt past his shoulders, he bumps his elbows into the wall. So she takes pity on his clumsy plight.

“I will take my hand off your throat and you’ll take that shirt off. Any attempts to escape and I _will_ throw you down and truss you up. Got it?”

He nods, vigorous enough to tickle his chest hair against her palm. “Yes’m.” His muscles jump beneath his skin and the boy is all sharp edges, too raw for proper subtlety. She knows--before he does, in all likelihood— that he’s trying to ‘escape,’ shrugging out of his shirt but _damn_ he looks fine in the dim light, dappled shadows playing over muscle before he twists to the side, hands raised as he stumbles to the door.

Even if his heart were in it, she wears her years like bandoliers and he holds no surprises. She tackles him in an easy lunge, digging her knee into his back and sliding her other knee to the side, gripping his jaw in one hand and wedging his arm over her leather-clad thigh—a movement he acquiesces to far too easily for a real fight, boundaries blurring between pain and play. She straddles his back, legs pressing against his ribs and he soon realizes his error as she cackles. Her laughter cuts the air like a whip as she grips his chin in both hands, leaning back just slightly to feel him turn taut below her, squirming and sputtering as he realizes the haplessness of his position. And it’s not even _strength_ , though she hadn’t been joking about arm-wrestling a super mutant, nor is it _weight_ when in all honesty the kid’s got twenty, maybe thirty pounds on her, but it’s _authority_. Leverage, in all the many meanings of the term.

“You aren’t the bronco you think you are, kid.” She leans forward, feeling rather than hearing him exhale relief as the pressure eases. “Had enough, or should I brand you?”

“Uh…” He gulps. “Yellow?”

Bea promptly relaxes her grip, still sitting astride him. “You okay, kid?”

“Yeah. Just—um.” He turns his head, cheek mashed against the floor and making him sound even more pathetic. “Would you really brand me?”

“Not unless you asked me to.” And she _does_ have the irons buried deep in the back of the dresser but she’s never actually used them for more than a threat. Not that it would console the kid much, so she decides not to mention it.

“Oh thank _god_.” His laugh is a weak, watery thing so she gets off him, rolling him to the side and letting him rest his head in her lap. They lay like that for a while, her finger tracing poetry against his scalp until his breathing slows. It rustles warm over her leather chaps, a fleeting reminder of intact skin and smooth thighs.

“Ah… I’m sorry about that. Um. I’d really like to start again,” he pleads, tilting his head to gaze up at her in wide-eyed wonder. She could count the individual motes of light reflected in his eyes and trace the angel-curve of each eyelash.

“Kid, don’t be sorry. Too much?”

“You’re—you’re _intense_.” He flushes at that, but his fluttering lashes can’t hide the adoration in those coffee-colored eyes. “I just—I forgot it’s just play for a moment.” Admiration tints his words like paint in water. “I’d really like to keep going. Just—maybe being thrown around and tied up?”

“Whenever you’re green.”

He rolls to his feet, loose-limbed and trembling about the edges like a new leaf. He waits until she’s standing too, her hands by her side, dangling open and ready to grab. Dabbing his lips with his tongue, it takes a few moments before he rediscovers his voice. “Green.”

So she grips his shoulders and thrusts him into the wall, wedging a knee between his legs and pushing up. His groan hisses past his teeth. His hands reach up in surrender but she pays them no mind, instead raking her fingers through his hair, all sharp nails and tight pull against those dark curls as she manhandles him to the bed, sitting him down and pulling rope from the bedside table. It’s one of her favorite pieces, the fiber worn smooth with use and with no stray tufts to abrade tender skin.

“Hands in front,” she snaps and he obeys automatically, thoughtlessly, body responding before his higher brain can even process the command. A gentle touch sets his wrists apart at the right distance so she starts wrapping them, letting the rope lie flat before crossing the tails. He shivers, gaze rapt on the rope as she tightens, winding from the center to the wrists. The kid releases a low sigh of appreciation as he starts to recognize the basic wrap, staple of so many cowboy fantasies. Hell, it’s one of her favorites too, though for other reasons—it’s circulation-friendly and versatile as a good vocabulary. Plus she likes the way it looks, the simple joy of rope on flesh and the so-visible mark of ownership.

It’s chiaroscuro. He’s soft skin and puppy-eyed inexperience—she’s spurs and leather.

She finishes the ropes in a double overhand knot, using the triangle-shaped tie-off to pull him to his feet. He follows eager and bright, pupils dilated as if to consume the iris, his smile creased so sharply it might never wear off.

“So are you a no-good varmint, or am I the black hat?” she rasps, voice rustling in his ear like dead leaves.

He shivers, and even if he’s not old enough to remember the cinema he gets the gist. “I’m an innocent man, ma’am.”

“And I’m the dark-hearted bandit?” Arm around him, wrapped like a lover with her teeth on his neck and her other hand still tight about his rope shackles, she could ride him like a bull, press him like wine and bruise him like a flower—some things only release their best when damaged.

“You are whatever you want to be.”

“Correct answer, kid.”

And there’s pleasure in the pain, for both of them—his skin so soft beneath her own, the knit of flesh and sinew, the wild thrum of his heart beneath her ear when she drags her nails over his flesh. The way he cries hoarse when she grips his jaw, squeezing his cheeks to part his mouth like a horse for inspection. He smells clean, soap and the faint scent of broc flower lingering on his skin. Even his sweat is fresh and sharp, salt and tang on the back of her nostrils as she breathes in at the hollow of his throat. Her own scent is gunpowder and leather but he likes it, taking great gulping breaths whenever her sleeve passes his lips or she leans close.

There is an art to it though—like brush-strokes on canvas or flogging virgin skin. So when he’s gasping and incoherent, tears streaming out the corners of his eyes and gleaming like diamonds, she rasps “had enough, kid?”

“Yes! No!” His shoulders quake with his conflicting answers, a sob ripping his throat as he stares at her with wide eyes, whites visible all around like a startled animal. “I don’t _know_. Whatever—whatever you wanna give me.”

“Correct again, kid.” She laughs against his throat, pulling his trembling hands high and unbuckling his belt with a smooth, practiced movement. Pulling the waistband of his boxers out, then down, she eyes his erection with a chuckle. “Look kid, I’m not touching that thing.” And he whimpers so cute, tiny gasps in the back of his throat as he rocks on the balls of his feet. So she only waits a few moments, just enough to prolong the torment before tossing him his scrap. “But _you_ can. Sit.”

His ass hits the bed hard enough to make the springs scream.

Letting the rope slide through her fingers and loosening the leash, she orders, “Get yourself off. You’ve got a ten-count before I punish you for disobeying. Ten.”

The words have yet to sink in, his jaw slack. She slaps his cheek with her fingertips, his open mouth amplifying the pop of her strike.

“Nine.”

He shakes his head like a diver breaching the surface and cups one hand around his shaft.

“Eight.”

Abrupt, jerky motions as he tries to find a rhythm. She notes the kid’s left-handed—not that it makes it any easier for him to adjust to jacking off with his wrists bound.

“Seven.”

Faster now, hitting his stride and giving a strangled gasp that sounds halfway between a choke and a hiccup.

“Six.”

His eyes screw shut, crinkling around the edges as he pants.

“Five—no, watch me. Look me in the eye, kid. I want to see your face when you come.”

Like a marionette on a string his head draws back up, staring at her with wild eyes. Sweat gleams on his shoulders.

“Four.”

He bites his lip, so hard she sees blood stain his teeth. She’d lick it from his mouth if that weren’t so close to a kiss.

“Three.”

And it’s a struggle not to rush, because as much as she loves his desperation to orgasm before she reaches zero, she won’t cheat. Bea has been many things—liar, wrestler, bodyguard—but _never_ a cheat.

“Two.”

She already knows he’ll make it, his cock twitching in his hands before she announces “ _one_ ” with relish. His climax spurts, spattering his pants and he groans deep and contented, slumping forward so his hair flops over his face. But not before she got to see that blessed expression of mingled relief and gratification, that sweet release of tension as the orgasm hit.

“Game over. How are you feeling, kid?”

“Good,” he mumbles, pupils still blown dark. His words slur into one another like the colors of a sunrise.

“I’m going to untie your wrists now, okay?” Not that she expects protest, but the drop seems to be hitting him harder than expected. Fortunately he didn’t make a mess on her rope—and she would wash it anyway, but she dislikes dealing with fluids—so she unwinds the wraps, loosening them enough to slide first his left shackle free, then the right. Laying the rope aside, she inspects his wrists. Some pressure marks where she pulled or he struggled, but no abrasions. Good.

She wipes the semen off his jeans with one of the old rags that the workers keep stocked for just such accidents. Then she picks up his shirt and the fallen button, coaxing him back into his clothing with gentle commands. “Left hand first, yes. Good boy.” She has to hold the sleeve steady for him, the whisper-rasp of his hand sliding against the fabric rattling through the room. “Now the right. I’m going to button you up.” His limp posture straightens as she finishes fastening him in and smooths the edge of his collar. “How are you feeling?”

He swallows, eyes still hazy but more strength in his voice as he replies. “Good. _Really_ good. Wow. You’re—wow. That was fantastic.” He smiles, just the barest curl of his lip as he dips his head. “All green.”

Though she has to help him to his feet, he manages to fasten his own pants and belt before she escorts him downstairs. He holds his hand out for hers, lips parted as if expecting to perform some sweet and foolish act of gallantry, but she drops the button in his palm.

“Come back and see me sometime, kid.”


End file.
